My car shudders
Upon ignition, my breath
As visible in January
As the results of my last bloodwork.
I drag myself before sunrise
To the waiting room.
There are prints of fox hunting scenes on the wall,
Black-capped hunters astride chestnut horses,
Clearing rustic fences, hounds chase
The desperate fox across the treeless English landscape.
I can’t turn away from these scenes,
Ten hunters, one fox.
The blonde nurse with the delicious overbite
Who reminds me of a sexed-up cartoon rabbit
Calls my name for weight and temperature.
Inside the scrape and hiss of static sounds Serrate
the chilled air. The machines that substitute for my failing
kidneys bookend green vinyl chairs and hold my blood
outside of myself one quart at a time in some gauzy chalice
and nurses drift like bored angels armed in crepe white and
plastic face shields. We are loaned time, even years with
interest, draining excess fluid, propelling our worn hearts
into an echo chamber rhythm.
As the needle sinks into my surgically altered vein
My sympathy lies with the foxes in hiding,
Wild-eyed and panting, traces of foam at the jaw’s corner.
The low drumming of hooves,
Crazed dogs trained kill their kin, crimson jacket riders
seeping across some imagined plain of some distant
time, some distant kingdom.
Originally published in The Adirondack Review.
Troy Schoultz is a lifelong Wisconsin resident. His poems, stories, and reviews have appeared in Seattle Review, Rattle, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Santa Monica Review, Adirondack Review, Palooka and many others in the U.S. and U.K. since 1999. He is the author of Biographies of Runaway Dogs (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2017), No More Quiet Entrances (Luchador Press, 2020), and co-author of Remnants (Luchador Press, 2021) with visual artist Amie Brownfield.
Troy is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh campuses. He is also an analog collage artist, and hosts Mr. Troy’s Lo-Fi Motel Radio Hour on Oshkosh 101.9 FM. He currently resides in Oshkosh, WI (USA). He can be reached at troy.schoultz@gmail.com.